Manure Matters, Volume 8, Number 3

How much can you pay to have manure applied to your land? Livestock feeders often need more land for manure application to avoid excessive buildup of soil phosphorus. In some cases, they request payment to reduce transport costs. When is manure a good buy for crop production? Manure supplies the full complement of nutrients needed by crops and often helps to improve soil biological and physical properties such as the rate of water infiltration. Because of these soil improvements, crop yield is often more with manure application than with fertilizers. One way of estimating the value of manure is to use results from trials and determine the value of the fertilizer replaced and the increase in productivity. Several trials have been conducted with farmers under the Nebraska Soybean & Feed Grains Profitability Project (http://onfarmresearch. unl.edu/)

Manure Matters, Volume 8, Number 3

How much can you pay to have manure applied to your land? Livestock feeders often need more land for manure application to avoid excessive buildup of soil phosphorus. In some cases, they request payment to reduce transport costs. When is manure a good buy for crop production? Manure supplies the full complement of nutrients needed by crops and often helps to improve soil biological and physical properties such as the rate of water infiltration. Because of these soil improvements, crop yield is often more with manure application than with fertilizers. One way of estimating the value of manure is to use results from trials and determine the value of the fertilizer replaced and the increase in productivity. Several trials have been conducted with farmers under the Nebraska Soybean & Feed Grains Profitability Project (http://onfarmresearch. unl.edu/)

Manure Matters, Volume 10, Number 6

Phosphorous Runoff Risk During Years following Manure Application Manure application may result in increased water infiltration and reduced runoff but it can also lead to excessive soil P levels and increased P concentration in runoff. Research was conducted to determine the residual effects of composted manure on runoff loss of water, sediment and phosphorus, and to evaluate soil P tests in prediction of P concentration in runoff. The residual effects of previously applied composted feedlot manure were studied from 2001 to the spring of 2004 at a runoff facility established in 1998 at the UNL Agricultural Research and Development Center. The runoff facility consisted of 21 plots of 36 ft length with a median slope of 5.5%. Low P and high P compost had been applied annually three times in 1998 to 2001 resulting in total phosphate applications of 1500 and 2300 lb/A. Irrigated corn and soybeans were grown in rotation. Bray-1 P in the surface 2” of soil was increased from 16 ppm with no compost applied to 780 ppm with application of high P compost. Runoff loss was more with the no-compost treatment than with compost applied (Table 1). P concentration in runoff, especially bioavailable P, increased as the amount of P applied in compost increased. Bio-available P loss in runoff (lb/Ac) was generally more where compost was applied but the effect of higher concentration with the compost treatments was partly offset by the reduced runoff with the compost treatments. The effect of reduced runoff was even more pronounced for total P loss. In fact, total P loss for 2002-4 where no compost was applied was as much as with the high compost treatment. In interpreting these results, we need to remember that plot length was just 36’; given that runoff and erosion potential are dependent on slope length, the actual losses measured are likely to be considerably less than would occur at a typical field scale with 5.5% slope

Manure Matters, Volume 10, Number 9

New Manure Use Planning Tools for Nebrask

Salt thresholds for liquid manure applications through a center pivot

Presented at the 2007 Central Plains irrigation conference on February 27-28 in Kearney, Nebraska.Includes bibliographical references

G03-1504 Lime Use for Soil Acidity Management

Soil acidity can reduce crop production by directly affecting roots and changing the availability of essential nutrients and toxic elements. Liming can neutralize soil acidity, but several factors can affect the economic benefits of liming. With continuous cropping, soil pH can decrease (i.e., increase in acidity) because of various factors, including crop removal and leaching of basic cations, application of ammoniabased nitrogen fertilizers, and organic matter decomposition. Adding lime or other materials can raise soil pH to the ideal range for crop production, create an environment for a healthy function of microbes, and increase the levels of calcium or magnesium ions

African bean production environments: their definition, characteristics and constraints

Bean production in Africa is very heterogeneous with much variation in environmental conditions, cropping systems, preferences and constraints. This working document contains information on the many bean producing areas in Africa. The data were gleaned from numerous sources but a major part of these are from the observations of CIAT and national bean program researchers over the last ten years. Thirteen bean producing environments are defined from consideration of altitude, latitude, soil pH and seasonal rainfall. Seventy bean producing areas, having estimated annual bean production of between 2,000 and 220,000 hectares, are described on the bases of environmental and socio-economic characteristics, cropping systems, farmer and consumer preferences, and biotic and abiotic constraints. The importance of the constraints was evaluated both on a pan-African and a regional basis. Angular leaf spot, anthracnose, bean stem maggot, bruchids, low soil nitrogen and low soil phosphorus were determined to be the most important constraints to greater productivity on a pan-African basis